`Mental Aerobics` Series For Seniors Hopes To Expand

People/Entertainment - Edited version appeared in central

November 24, 1985|By Malinda Reinke, Staff Writer

Dr. Abraham Dury held the 50 senior citizens spellbound.

For the past three weeks he had been teaching them about science and sociology - how the two are intertwined, how they affect each other and the world in 1985. The topic of this, his last session, was ``Sex Without Reproduction and Reproduction Without Sex.``

Birth control and test tube babies.

For two hours in an auditorium at Palm Beach Junior College, the students of this New Dimensions course took notes or knitted or simply sat with their hands folded and kept their eyes on Dury.

But they all listened.

``Older people are hungry for this,`` said New Dimensions founder and executive director Etta Ress.

``This is called life-long learning.``

Ress, along with program coordinator Ann Dix, were relaxing at the New Dimensions enrollment desk in the Allied Health Building at PBJC. A steady stream of students, most of them in their 60s and 70s, had been signing up for December classes for 20 minutes. But now it was quiet.

``The people who were 60 and 65 in 1975 when New Dimensions started are 10 years older and still attending classes and they`re sharp as ever,`` said Ress, 74. ``The human brain never dies, but it needs stimulation.

``This is aerobics of the mind,`` she said with a wink at Dix. ``You like that?``

Dix grinned. ``I like that,`` she said.

As Ress explains it, the Institute of New Dimensions is an innovative educational program that combines the expertise of its retired professional instructors with the desire of its older students to continue to learn.

It began in 1975 with a one-time $5,000 grant from Action to United Way- Retired Senior Volunteer Program (R.S.V.P.) of Palm Beach County. In 1977, Palm Beach Junior College became sponsor for the program through its Division of Continuing Education.

Its curriculum, which changes each month, covers topics such as book reviews, genealogy, medicine, philosophy, nature and the arts.

Dix said its instructors are highly skilled professionals such as Dury, former Deputy Director of Medical Research Services at the Veterans Administration, former Associate Chief of Scientific Programs with the National Institutes of Health, and former professor at George Washington University Medical School.

``And our semesters last one month,`` said Dix. ``That way we hold their interest and it gives them a chance to get involved in other things, too. Our courses are at the intellectual level rather than the how-to.

``People need intellectual stimulation so badly.``

Dix, 57, of Boca Raton, is one of four salaried members of the New Dimensions staff. Everyone else is a volunteer, she said. Instructors donate their time. Volunteers do paper work and answer the phones in the New Dimension office at PBJC.

Even Ress is a volunteer, Dix said.

Ress said she came up with the idea for New Dimensions while she was helping out at R.S.V.P., an agency that finds volunteer positions throughout the community for senior citizens.

``I said to them, `You`re missing the boat,` `` Ress said. ``You`ve got a group of people here who could serve the community. Retired professionals with a great deal of experience that they could be using.

``Then R.S.V.P. applied for the grant (that started New Dimensions).``

When the program opened, about 20 people enrolled in its courses - history of art, classical music and understanding the body, a biology course. The classes were at one location, the Florida Atlantic University annex in West Palm Beach.

Now hundreds of seniors enroll in any of up to 25 courses offered each month, Ress said. For $25 a year and a $1 enrollment fee, they are eligible to take as many courses as they like. Classes are offered on PBJC campuses in West Palm Beach, Lake Worth and Palm Beach Gardens.

Dix and Ress said they would like to see another location open in the Boca Raton-Delray Beach area.

``New Dimensions serves as a meeting place for older people who are intelligent and curious,`` Ress said. ``And while we are giving them the opportunity to broaden their horizons in the humanities, we`re also giving them the chance to attack problems in everyday living.

``We have classes which deal with art, the economy, current events. We have symposiums on social problems they face such as dependency in aging.``

Ress, who designed curriculums for the New York School Board most of her life, said she knew exactly what she was doing when she started New Dimensions in South Florida when she was 64 years old.

``I was one of the group I was serving. I was a peer,`` the director said. ``I was writing curriculums. I was an educator. But I never dreamed I`d do anything like this.``